Vietnam is long, cheap and busy. The whole trip is which days you book.
What an overnight junk on Ha Long really costs. Whether Ninh Binh beats Sapa when you have one free day. Which Hanoi food walk ends up on the train tracks. Priced, timed and reviewed, right down to the three-dollar basket boat.
A jeep in Hanoi, a tunnel outside Saigon, rice fields at Tam Coc, a coracle in Hoi An.
Four days a first Vietnamese fortnight tends to hang off. What each one costs, and what you actually get for it.
01Hanoi, day oneHanoi Jeep Tour: Food, Culture and Fun by Vietnam Army JeepRussian army jeeps through the Old Quarter, stopping to eat. The most popular thing in the city and the fastest way to stop being lost in it.
02The karst day1-Day Tam Coc/Trang An, Hoa Lu & Mua CavesTam Coc, Hoa Lu and five hundred steps up Mua Cave, back in Hanoi for dinner. The rice in the valley below turns gold around the end of May.
03The Saigon day tripCu Chi Tunnels Tour from HCM City – Morning or AfternoonTwo hours out of the city to the tunnels at Cu Chi and back by lunch on the morning run. The afternoons out there are brutal.
04The three-dollar oneBasket Boat Ride in the Coconut ForestA coracle spun through the coconut palms at Cam Thanh, twenty minutes from Hoi An. Cheapest hour in the country and nobody comes home without the video.
Hanoi, Ha Long, Hue, Hoi An, Saigon: the length of Vietnam in two weeks.
Hanoi
Ha Long Bay
Ninh Binh
Hue
Hoi An
Ho Chi Minh CityLimestone bays in the north, coconut channels in the south, a boat for both.
Ha Long and Lan Ha are day-cruise country: a swim stop, an hour in a kayak, lunch cooked on deck. A thousand miles south the water turns brown and narrow and you take it in a sampan under the palms.
Hanoi, Hue, Hoi An, Saigon: six bases, and the best day out of each.
One railway line, seventeen hundred kilometres and a handful of towns worth stopping in. The bay in the north, the imperial city in the middle, the lantern streets on the coast, the delta at the bottom.
Hanoi: get lost on purpose, then eat your way back out.
Everything in Hanoi →
The Old Quarter is thirty-six streets of horns, plastic stools and one railway line running between the houses. Book something that moves — a jeep, a scooter, a food walk — and the city stops being a wall of traffic.
The Old Quarter, by jeep or on foot
Thirty-six guild streets, a lake with a temple on an island in it, and the railway alley. Going with somebody who knows the lanes saves you the first two lost days.
Bun cha, banh mi, egg coffee
Six or seven stops on knee-high stools, ending at the egg coffee everyone is suspicious of and nobody leaves. Most walks now pass the train tracks on the way.
Ninh Binh, and the steps up Mua Cave
Two hours south into a valley of limestone towers, rowed through three flooded caves by a woman using her feet, then five hundred steps for the view. Back in Hanoi by dark.
The days out more travellers take than anything else in Vietnam.
Every tour in the country →Eight bookings that keep pulling ahead of everything else here, and what each one costs.
1
Cu Chi Tunnels Tour from HCM City – Morning or Afternoon
Review of the $15 Cu Chi Tunnels tour from Ho Chi Minh City, with pickup, guide advice, tunnel details, timing, costs, and practical tips.
From · $15
Read our review →2
Hanoi Jeep Tour: Food, Culture and Fun by Vietnam Army Jeep
from $55
3
Mekong Delta Tour with Sampan Journey
from $16
4
Ho Chi Minh City Street Food Tour & Sightseeing By Motorbike
from $28
5
Full-Day Ninh Binh Highlights Tour from Hanoi
from $79
6
Cu Chi Tunnels-Tapioca Small Group Tour Morning or Afternoon
from $14
7
Ha Long Bay Day Cruise – Swimming, Meal, Kayaking
from $41
8
Cu Chi Tunnels and Mekong Delta Signature Tour
from $33
Vietnam is eaten at knee height, on a plastic stool.
Pho before eight, bun cha at noon, banh mi from a cart, and coffee thick with condensed milk whenever the heat wins. The good walks run three hours, six stops, and a guide who orders for you.
Hoi An turns its lights off once a month and floats candles instead.
A yellow-walled trading port that the century mostly missed. Tailors on every corner, a river full of coracles and paper lanterns, and cooking classes that start at the market at six in the morning.
Every Hoi An day out →
A good day in Vietnam costs less than lunch at home.
Every tour in the country grouped by what it costs. Most of Vietnam sits in that first column.
Street-food walks, show and museum tickets, basket boats, day cruises out of Hanoi and most of what the Old Quarter sells.
The full days: Ninh Binh, Ba Na Hills and the Golden Bridge, the Hai Van pass by motorbike, the delta with a night in it.
Overnight junks with a cabin, the three-day Ha Giang loop with a rider doing the driving, private cars and multi-day runs.
A road, a railway and a puppet stage you will not find anywhere else.
Mountain passes and street food happen all over Asia. A limestone loop ridden on a rented Honda, a train that scrapes a residential alley twice a day, and puppets worked from under the water do not.
The Ha Giang Loop
Three or four days around the far north, either riding a rented bike yourself or sitting behind somebody who does it for a living. The road climbs to the Ma Pi Leng pass with the Nho Que river a long way down on the right, through villages the buses reach once a week. Riders leave Ha Giang most mornings; the sleeper buses up from Hanoi run overnight.
- 1Ha Giang Loop 3 days Small group- From Ha Noi★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,114 reviews
- 2Ha Giang Loop 3D/2N Private Room+Free Dorm Hotel 1N before tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 993 reviews
- 3Ha Giang Loop 4 Days 3 Nights Motorbike Tour with easy Rider★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 972 reviews
The Train Street
The line south out of Hanoi runs down a residential alley barely wider than the carriages, and people drink coffee on the sleepers until minutes before it comes through. The cafes get closed and reopened; somebody local knows which end is open this week and when the train is due.
- 1Guided Food Tour with Train Street Visit★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 6,239 reviews
- 2Street Food Tour with Train Street & Hidden Alleyways★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,831 reviews
- 3Guided Street Food Tour with Train Street Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 2,479 reviews
Water Puppets
A delta art a thousand years old, performed in a flooded stage: the puppeteers stand in the water behind a bamboo screen and work dragons, fishermen and rice farmers on long poles. An hour long, seven dollars, live band at the side of the pool.
- 1Water Puppet Show Tickets★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 7,029 reviews
- 2Water Puppet Show Ticket with Hotel Delivery Add-On★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,554 reviews
- 3Thang Long Water Puppet Show Ticket – Skip The Line★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 836 reviews
Four Vietnamese bookings you cannot sort out the night before.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast for the same afternoon. These four run on harvests, on one departure a day, and on a road that takes three days whatever you do to it.
- 01Ha Giang Loop 3 days Small group- From Ha NoiThree to four days of riding, and the overnight buses up from Hanoi fill before the bikes do.
- 02Cozy Bay Halong 5-Star Day Cruise, Buffet, Cave, Kayak, SwimmingThe overnight boats leave once a day, late morning. The cabins with a window go weeks ahead.
- 03Cu Chi Tunnels Tour from HCM City – Morning or AfternoonThe tunnels are two hours out of Saigon and unbearable after noon, so the morning departures go first.
- 04Sapa 2 Days 1 Night From Hanoi – Overnight in Ta Van VillageThe terraces are gold for about three weeks in September, and the trekking homestays are spoken for by then.
Vietnam has no single season, and half of it is always wet.
The north goes cold and grey in February, the centre takes the typhoons from September, and the south simply rains hard for an hour every afternoon from May. None of it ruins a day. It moves the day indoors: a kitchen, a lantern workshop, a coffee house, a stage.
By place — north to south
By kind of day — boat, bike, kitchen or cave
Reviews that landed most recently.
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